A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.

Tit. 1. Directions against evil and idle Thoughts.

§. 2. Direct. 1. KNow which are evil Thoughts, and retein such an odious Character of them conti∣nually on your minds, as may provoke you still to meet them with abhorrence. Evil thoughts are such as these: 1. All thoughts against the Being, or Attributes, or Relations, or ho∣nour, or works of God: Atheistical and Blasphemous Idolatrous and unbelieving thoughts: All thoughts that tend to disobedience or opposition to the will or word of God: And all that savour of unthankfullness or want of Love to God: or of discontent and distrust, or want of the fear of God, or that tend to any of these: Also sinful, selfish, covetous, proud studies: to make a meer trade of the Ministry for gain, To be able to overtalk others: Searching into unrevealed forbidden things: Inordinate curiosity, and hasty conceitedness of your own opinions about Gods Decrees, or obscure Prophecies, Prodigies, Providence, mentioned before about Pride of our understandings.

All thoughts against any particular word, or truth, or precept of God, or against any particular duty; against any part of the worship and ordinances of God: that tend to unreverent neglects of the name, or Holy Day of God: All impious thoughts against publick duty, or family duty, or secret duty; and all that would hinder or marr any one duty: All thoughts of dishonour, contempt, neg∣lect, or disobedience to the authority or higher powers set over us by God, either Magistrates, Pastors, Parents, Masters or any other Superiors. All thoughts of Pride, self-exalting ambition, self-seeking Covetousness: Voluptuous sensual Thoughts, proceeding from or tending to the corrupt inordinate pleasures of the flesh: Thoughts which are unjust and tend to the hurt and wrong of others: Envyous, malicious, reproachful, injurious, contemptuous, wrathful, revengeful thoughts: Lustful, wanton filthy thoughts: Drunken, gluttonous, fleshly thoughts: Inordinate, careful, fear∣ful, anxious, vexatious, discomposing thoughts: Presumptuous and secure, despairing and dejecting thoughts: Slothful, delaying, negligent and discouraging thoughts: Uncharitable, cruel, false, cen∣sorious, unmerciful thoughts: And idle unprofitable thoughts. Hate all these as the Devils spawn.

§. 3. Direct. 2. Be not insensible what a great deal of Duty or sin is in the Thoughts, and of how dangerous a signification and consequence a course of evil thoughts is to your souls. They shew what a Man is as much as his words or actions do. For as be thinketh in his heart, so is he: Prov. 23. 7. A good man or evil is denominated by the good or evil treasure of the heart, though known to men but by the fruits. O the vile and numerous sins that are committed in mens thoughts, and proceed from mens thoughts! O the pretious Time that is lost, in idle and other sinful thoughts? O the good that is hindered hereby both in heart and life! But of this having spoken in the Treatise aforemen∣tioned, I proceed.

§. 4. Direct. 3. Above all be sure that you cleanse the Fountain, and destroy those sinful inclinati∣ons of the heart, from which your evil thoughts proceed. In vain else will you strive to stop the streams. Or if you should stop them, that very Heart it self will be lothsom in the eyes of God. Are your Thoughts all upon the world, either coveting, or caring, or grieving for what you want, or pleasing your selves with what you have or hope for? Get down your deceived estimation of the world: cast

it under your feet, and out of your heart; and count all with Paul, but as loss and dung, for the excellent knowledge of God in Christ: For till the world be dead in you, your worldly thoughts will not be dead: But all will stand still, when once this poise is taken off: Crucifie it, and this breath and pulse will cease. So if your thoughts do run upon matter of preferment or honour, dis∣grace or contempt, or if you are pleased with your own preheminence or applause; Mortifie your Pride, and beg of God a humble self-denying contrite heart. For till Pride be dead, you will ne∣ver be quiet for it; but it will stir up swarms of self-exalting and yet self-vexing thoughts, which make you hateful in the eyes of God. So if your thoughts be running out upon your back and belly, what you shall eat or drink, or how to please your appetite or sense; Mortifie the flesh, and sub∣due its desires, and master your appetite, and bring them into full obedience unto reason, and get a habit of temperance; or else your thoughats will be still upon your guts and throats: For they will obey the ruling power: And a violent passion and desire doth so powerfully move them, that it is hard for the reason and will to rule them. So if your thoughts are wanton and filthy, you must cleanse that unclean and lustful heart, and get Christ to cast out the unclean spirit, and become chast within, before you will keep out your unchast cogitations. So if you have confusion and va∣nity in your thoughts, you must get a well-furnished and well-composed mind and heart, before you will well cure the maladie of your thoughts.

§. 5. Direct. 4. Keep at a sufficient distance from those tempting objects, which are the fuel and in∣centives of your evil thoughts. Can you expect that the Drunkard should rule his Thoughts, whilst he is in the ALE-house or Tavern, and seeth the drink? Or that the Glutton should rule his thoughts, while the pleasing dish is in his sight? Or that the Lustful person should keep chast his thoughts, in the presence of his enamouring toy? Or that the wrathful person rule his thoughts, among contentious passionate words! Or that the Proud person rule his thoughts, in the midst of ho∣nour and applause? Away with this fuel: Fly from this infectious air if you would be safe.

§. 6. Direct. 5. At least, make a Covenant with your senses, and keep them in obedience, if you will have obedient thoughts. For all know by experience how potently the senses move the thoughts: Iob saith I made a Covenant with my eyes, why then should I think upon a Maid: Mark how the Covenant with his eyes, is made the means to rule his thoughts. Pray with David, Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity: Psalm 119. 37. Keep a guard upon your eyes, and ears, and tast, and touch, if you will keep a guard upon your thoughts: Let not that come into these outer parts, which you desire should go no further. Open not the door to them, if you would not let them in.

§. 7. Direct. 6. Remember how near kin the Thought is to the deed; and what a tendencie it hath to it. Let Christ himself tell you, Matth. 7. 22. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the Iudgement; vers. 28. I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. A malicious thought and a malicious deed are from the same spring, and have the same nature: Only the deed is the riper serpent, that can sting another, when the Thought is as the younger serpent that hath only the venemous nature in it self. A lustful thought is from the same defiled puddle, as actual filthiness: And the thought is but the passage to the action: It is but the same sin in its minority, tending to maturity.

§. 8. Direct. 7. Keep out, or quickly cast out all inordinate passions: For Passions do violently press the thoughts, and forcibly carry them away. If anger, or grief, or fear, or any carnal Love, or joy, or pleasure be admitted, they will command your thoughts to run out upon their several objects. And when you rebuke your thoughts, and call them in, they will not ••aer you, till you get them out of the crowd and noise of passion. As in the heat of civil wars no Government is well exercised in a Kingdom: And as violent storms disable the marryners to govern the ship, and save it and themselves; so passions are too stormy a Region for the Thoughts to be well Governed in: Till your souls be redu∣ced to a calm condition, your thoughts will be tumultuating, and hurryed that way that the tempests drive them. Till these warrs be ended, your Thoughts will be licentious, and partakers in the rebellion.

§. 9. Direct. 8. Keep your souls in a constant and careful obedience unto God: Observe his Law: Be continually sensible that you are under his Government; and awed by his authority: Man judgeth not your Thoughts: If you are subject to man only your Thoughts must be ungoverned: But the Heart is the first Object of Gods Government, and that which he principally regardeth. His Laws extend to all your thoughts: And therefore if you know what Obedience to God is, you must know what the obedience of your Thoughts to him is: For he that obeyeth God as God, will obey him in one thing as well as another; and will obey him as the Governor and Iudge of Thoughts: The powerful searching word of Christ is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and as a two-edged sword is sharp and quick, and will pierce and cut as deep as the very soul and spirit, Heb. 4. 12, 13. It casteth down every imaginati∣on and bringeth into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 Cor. 10. 5. Therefore David saith to God, search me O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139. 23, 24. And you find Gods laws and reproofs extending to the thoughts: Isa. 59. 7. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. The fools heart-atheism is rebuked, Psalm. 14. 1. He reproveth a rebellious people, for walking in a way that is not good after their own thoughts, Isa. 65. 2. See how Christ openeth the heart, Matth. 15. 9. He chargeth them, Deut. 15. 9. to beware that there be not a thought in their wicked hearts against the mercy which they must shew to the poor. Psalm 49▪ 11. He detecteth the inward thought of the

w••••ld••ing, that their h••uses shall continue for ever. Psalm 24. 9. He ••aith, The thought of foolishness i•• ••••••••: The old world was ••••ndemn••d because the imaginations of their hearts were only evil continu∣ally, G••n. 6. 5, And when God calleth a sinner, to conversion, he saith, Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighte••us man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy up••n him. Isa. 55. 6, 7. You see then if you are subject to God, your Thoughts must be obe∣dient.

§. 10. Direct. 9. Remember Gods continual presence; that all your thoughts are in his sight. He se••th ev••ry ••ilthy thought, and every covetous, and proud, and ambitious thought, and every un∣charitable malitious thought. If you be not Atheists, the remembrance of this will somewhat check and controul your thoughts; that God beholdeth them. He understandeth your thoughts afar off, Psalm 139 ••. D••th not ••e that p••ndereth the heart consider it? Prov. 24. 12. Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts, ••aith Christ, Matth. 9. 4.

§. 11. Direct. 10. Bethink you seriously what a Government you would keep upon your thoughts if they were but written on your foreheads, or seen to all that see you, yea or but open to some person whom ••••u reverence. O how ashamed would you then be, that men should see your filthy thoughts, your malitious thoughts, your covetous and deceiving thoughts? And is not the eye of God ten thousand times more to be reverenced and regarded? And is not man your God, if you are awed more by m••n than by God? And if the eye of man can do more to restrain you?

§. 12. Direct. 11. Keep tender your Consciences, that they may not be regardless or insensible of the smallest sin. A tender Conscience feareth evil and idle thoughts; and will smart in the penitent re∣view •••• thoughts: But a ••eared Conscience feeleth nothing, except some grievous crying sins. A ••••nder Conscience obeyeth that precept, Prov. 30. 32. If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thy self, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thy hand upon thy mouth.

§. 13. Direct. 12. Cast out vain and sinful thoughts in the beginning, before they settle themselves and make a dwelling of thy heart. They are easiliest and safeliest resisted in the entrance: Thy heart will give them rooting and grow familiar with them, if they make any stay: Besides, it shews the greater sin, because there is the less resistance, and the more consent: If the will were against them, it would not let them alone so long. Yea and their continuance tendeth to your ruine: It is like the c••n••inuance of poyson in your bowels, or fire in your thatch, or a spie in an armie: As long as they ••••ay they are working toward your greater mischief: If these flies stay long, they will blow and multiply: They will make their nests, and breed their young, and you will quickly have a swarm of sins.

§. 14. Direct. 13. Take ••eed l••st any practical error corrupt your understandings: or lest you be enga∣ged in any ill design: For these will command your thoughts into a course of sinful attendance and ser∣vice to their ends. He that erreth and thinks his sin is his virtue or his duty, will indulge the thoughts of it without controul: Yea he will drive on his mind to such cogitations; and steal from the au∣thority and word of God, the motives and incentives of his sin: As false prophets speak against God in the name of God, and against his word as by the pretended authority of his word; so an ••rring mind, will fetch its arguments from God and from the Scripture, for those sinful thoughts which are against God and Scripture. And if evil thoughts will so hardly be kept out when we plead the authority of God and his word against them, and do the best we can to hinder them; how will they prevail when you plead the authority of God and the sacred Scriptures for them, and take it to be your duty to kindle and promote them. For instance; all the sinful thoughts by which the Romish Clergy are contriving, the support of their Kingdom of darkness in the world, and the continuance of their tyranny in the Church, are but the products of their error, which ••••lls them that all this should be done, as pleasing to God, and profitable to the Church. All the bl••••dy thoughts of persecutors, against the Church and holy ways of Christ, have been cherished by this 〈◊〉〈◊〉 thought, John 16. 23. The time cometh that whoever killeth you, will Think that he doth God service: and th••se things they will do unto you, because they have not known the Father nor me. All P••uls bloody contrivances and practices against the Church, did come from this: Act. 26. 9. I ve∣ril•• thought with my self that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Iesus of Nazareth: which thing I also did—All the scornful and reproachful thoughts and speeches of many of the ungodly, against a holy life are hence: 1 Pet. 4. 4. They think it strange that you run not with them t•• excess of ry••t, speaking evil of you: The vain babling of hypocrites, who cheat their souls with idle lip-labour, instead of the spiritual service from the heart, and the sacrifice of fools, who offer God some outward thing, while they deny him their hearts, and holy obedience, do proceed from this; that They think to be heard for their much babling, Matth. 6. 7. and they consider not that they do evil: Ec••l. 5. 1. All the self-flattery and presumption of the ungodly, and consequently, all their ungodly lives, are much from their erroneous thoughts: He that thinketh he is something when he is nothing, deceiveth himself. Gal. 6. 3. O come into the light, and forsake your darkness: For sinful thoughts are like hobgoblins and hags, that fly from the light; and like worms and ser∣pents, that creep into holes, and crawl and gender in the dark.

§. 15. Direct. 14. Remember what an opening of thoughts there will be when you come into the light, either here by conviction, or at the furthest at the day of judgement. Then you will be ashamed to see what filth and vanity you entertained; and with what dross and rubbish you stust your minds. When the light comes in, what abundance of things will you see to your asto∣nishment, in the dungeon of your hearts, which now you take no notice of? Remember, that all

your hidden thoughts must ••one day be brought into the open light: Say not that this is a thing impossible, because they are so numerous: For God who seeth them all at once, and causeth his sun to illuminate so many millions at once, can make you see them all at once, and yet distinctly; and see the shame and filthiness of every one of them.

§. 16. Direct. 15. When you find that some thoughts of sin and vanity are following you still, for all that you can do, you must not therefore plunge your souls into so much sollicitousness, fear and trouble as may discourage and distract your mind; but wait on God in the complacential and obedien∣tial way of cure. It is the Tempters method to keep sinners utterly careless of their thoughts, and senseless of any sin that is in them, as long as he can; and when that hope faileth him, he will la∣bour to make a humbled obedient soul so sensible of the sin of his thoughts, and so careful about them, as to confound him, and cast him into melancholy, discouragement, and despair; and then he will have no command of his thoughts at all; but they will be as much ungoverned another way; and feed continually upon terror. The end of this temptation is to distract you and confound you: The pretence of the Tempter will be contrary to his end: For while he driveth you with terrors to think of nothing else, but what you have been or are thinking on, and to make your own thoughts the only or principal matter of your thoughts, he will confound you, and make you undisposed to all good, and unable to govern your thoughts at all: But if you prin∣cipally study the excellencies of God and Godliness and take the course which tends to make Religion pleasant to you, and withall keep up an aweful obedience to God, this Complacential obedience will best prevail.

§. 17. Direct. 16. Therefore deliver up your hearts to Christ in Love and duty, and consecrate your thoughts entirely to his service, and keep them still exercised on him, or in his work: and this will most effectually cure them of vanity and sin. If you have a friend that you love entirely, you will not feed swine in the room that must entertain him: You will not leave it nasty and unclean: You will not leave it common to every dirty unsuitable companion, to intrude at pleasure and disturb your friend: So Love and Pleasure will be readily and composedly careful, to keep clean the heart, and shut out vain and filthy thoughts; and say, This room is for a better guest; No∣thing shall come here, which my Lord abhorreth: Is he willing so wonderfully to condescend, as to take up so mean a habitation, and shall I streighten him, or offend him, by letting in his noy∣some enemies? Will he dwell in my heart, and shall I suffer thoughts of pride, or lust or malice, to dwell with him, or to enter in? Are these fit companions for the spirit of grace? Do I delight to grieve him? I know as soon as ever they come in, he will either resist them till he drive them out again, or he will go out himself: And shall I drive away so dear a friend, for the love of a filthy pernicious enemy? Or do I delight in warr? Would I have a continual combat in my heart? Shall I put the spirit of Christ to fight for his habitation, against such an ignominous foe?—Indeed there is no true cure▪ for sinful, vain, unprofitable thoughts, but by the contrary: by calling up the thoughts unto their proper work, and finding them more profitable employment: And this is by consecrating the Heart and them, entirely to the Love and service of him, that hath by the wonders of his Love, and by the strange design of his purchase and merits, so well deserved them. Let Christ come in, and deliver him the Key, and pray him to keep thy heart as his own, and he will cast out buyers and sellers from his temple, and will not suffer his house of prayer to be a den of thieves. But if you receive Christ with reserves, and keep up designs for the world and flesh, marvel not if Christ will be no partners with them, but leave all to those guests, which you would not leave for him.

Notes

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• Si••ut ••gnis in aqua durare n••n potest, ita ne{que} ••urp••s co∣gitatio in Dei amante: Quo∣niam omnis qui Dei ama∣tor est, etiam laboris amans est: Caeteru•• labor volun••a∣rius, natura∣liter voluptati inimicus ex∣istit. Marcus Ere••.